The Gold Falcon - Katharine Kerr [71]
“Alshandra. Did he tell you captives much about her?”
“Naught.” She glanced at the baby, who was sucking dirty fingers. “Stop it!” She slapped his hand. “If I remember rightly, he was going to, but the gwerbret’s men got there before he could start.”
The baby whimpered and began pulling at the front of her torn gray dress.
“Now, I’ve got to feed my little one here,” Canna said. “Can’t remember much more anyway.”
“Fair enough, then,” Salamander said. “Just one more question, if I may. How far are Lord Honelg’s lands?”
“Another day’s ride. I’ve been told that there’s a stone marker up, ’twixt his lands and the priests.”
“What’s his blazon, do you know?”
“He and his men ride by every once in a while. It’s a blue circle with a black arrow across it, but not straight. Sort of tilted, like, pointing up.”
“My thanks. Well, I’ll be going on now and let you get back to your children.”
As he rode away, Salamander was thinking about Honelg’s blazon. How very interesting! If that arrow means what I think it means, he’s cursed bold, what with the temple lands right next to his.
Yet, of course, Honelg had a perfectly legitimate reason to add an arrow to his clan’s blazon. Eldidd lords had known about the power of longbows for many a year, but it had taken the Cengarn War, and the way that elven arrows skewered enemies, to catch the attention of the Deverry lords. Although they considered using a bow beneath them personally, the northern nobility all wanted archers among their freemen. A good many of them reduced the taxes of any farmer who could provide a longbow and the skill to use it in times of war. Once Salamander crossed into Honelg’s demesne, he found young yew trees lining the road, some tall enough to supply a stout six feet of wood to a bowyer, all placed far enough apart to prevent them weaving their branches into a hedge. They must have been planted soon after the siege of Cengarn, Salamander figured. Like oak, yew grew in its own time and refused to be hurried.
He also saw a couple of farms where the cows and pigs looked well-fed, and the healthy-looking people he saw were decently dressed. When he stopped at their gates, they invited him inside and offered him a stoup of ale and a bit of food. Salamander played the affable gerthddyn, juggling and singing for the children, telling the adults tales based on the Cengarn War. Each time he mentioned Alshandra, calling her a false goddess, he watched his audience carefully, hoping for some betraying reaction. Finally, in the straggle of houses that formed the demesne’s only village, his hunting brought game.
On a hot humid evening the villagers gathered around the stone well to listen to this unexpected delight, a performer from down in Deverry. Salamander put on his performance shirt and secreted scarves, eggs, and the other such things he needed inside its hidden pockets. As the twilight began to fade, someone lit a pair of torches, and the black smoke thinned the cloud of gnats and mosquitos that had joined the audience. Salamander perched on the stone wall at the well and described the lifting of the siege.
“But all this slaughter would have been in vain,” Salamander said, “if the mighty magicians within the walls had not slain the false goddess, that demon, that illusion, Alshandra. How the Horsekin shrieked when she was slain—”
“That’s not true!” It was a child’s voice, from well back in the crowd. “She’s not dead.”
Everyone in the crowd gasped or swore, squirmed as they sat or turned to look back. At the edge of the pool of torchlight two figures, one short, one taller, shrank back into the darkness.
“Indeed?” Salamander said. “What’s this? I don’t understand.”
No one spoke or moved. In the smoky light Salamander had trouble discerning their facial expressions, but they seemed to be terrified. Finally the local blacksmith stood up and stepped forward. Salamander had noticed earlier that he seemed to have some sort of authority in the village.
“He be just a little lad,” Marth said. “Given